Grass Hammer
by warai kitsune
Summary: A rather Cracky explanation of Kenpachi's Shikai that somehow became borderline serious. Somehow though, it works.


There are some things in this world that are too great, too powerful, too unstoppable for mere mortals to counteract

I really need to see a psychiatrist; where in the tortured depths of my psyche THIS came from I'd pay good money to find out. Anyway, this is it, the story of how Kenpachi got his Shikai (I don't think his sword is really a constant-release like Ichigo's). Anyway, this started as a VERY cracked idea, but somewhere along the line it got more serious.

I won't say that I'll never write any of this again, but I after this point, I no longer have any plot or plan lined up, and so I probably won't.

Also, I recently started reading Terry Pratchett, including The Last Hero, and as a nod to my final inspiration for Kenpachi's zanpakuto, I dedicate not just this segment, but the whole story to Old Vincent, Caleb the Ripper, Mad Hamish, Boy Willy, Truckle the Uncivil, and of course the man himself, Genghiz Cohen AKA Cohen the Barbarian.

And now, on with Grass Hammer.

The sun beat down on him. He blinked quickly; he couldn't afford to take his eyes off his opponent for even a second if he wanted to find it, that one single instant of perfection, the moment it all came together. Sweat beading into his eyes was an annoyance to be tolerated; he dare not let his attention waver to anything else.

Him and Me. Me and him.

How long did he wait? Was it minutes? Hours? Had it been a day, a week, a lifetime? By this point, he honestly couldn't tell.

In the end, he could keep silent no longer; the tension demanded an outlet, and this at least was a safe one.

"...bottom of the ninth...the home team is down, 0 to 2. It was a close game, nearly a shut-out until a lucky swing put the visitors on the board. Now, with two outs, runners on first and third, the homerun king steps to the plate. This is it folks, the last game of the season...one chance, one chance for the underdog team no one saw reaching the end to turn it all around."

The voice shifted; some might call it pompous (those who didn't fear an iron club to the teeth), but those in the know (i.e. everyone who DID fear the club) would recognize it as majestic...reverent even.

"I think I speak for us all when I say that we could not be more fortunate  
to rest this chance on the slight shoulders of the one...the only...HANAKARI  
JINTA!"

Ururu sighed as she watched her fellow-worker (supposedly any way) start raising his hands to an imaginary crowd, accepting imaginary thunderous roars. "Tessai..."

He spun, broom jabbing in her direction almost like a sword. "SHUT UP! I DON'T CARE ABOUT TESSAI! I'M NOT SCARED OF TESSAI! I'M NOT SCARED OF NOBODY, GOT IT?!"

He 'erk'ed as a hand unceremoniously yanked him into the air. He growled as he tried to spin; with his luck it was probably that idiot bleach-blond looking for a quick power up; everybody else seemed to think the Boss could make them into superman or something. Couldn't be Tessai; when HE grabbed you, it was always after a stern, bellowed complaint you could hear a hundred yards away and coming. Spinning, he turned to swipe his broom at the dolt...

...and felt an immediate need to retract his earlier statement.

He'd never been more scared in his life.

"Oi."

Unfortunately for him, speech functions had ceased as he took in the sight of the hulking Shinigami.

Kenpachi grunted sourly as the brat continued gaping at him in terror. "Fuckin' pansies," he grumped. Dropping him, he turned to the girl; for some odd reason she had something approaching killing intention in her eyes. Weird. "Hey, where's the dumbshit who runs this place?"

The 'dumbshit' in question chose that moment to make his appearance. He'd realized about five minutes ago that he'd be having visitors; even blunted by that whole 'captain-class officers only get 20 power in the living world' idiocy, it was impossible NOT to sense Kenpachi's incoming reiatsu. Yawning, he leaned around the corner of his door, a tired (and well-rehearsed) greeting on his lips, and froze. And stared. Incredulously.

Most of the time Soul Reapers spent in the 'real' world, they were invisible. When they took gigai, they were always identical to your spiritual form; that was sort of the point. And of course, in order to ensure that Soul Society's business remained solely theirs, they made sure to at least attempt to blend in. Granted it didn't always (or even usually) work, but the effort was usually made.

Kenpachi, in a word, didn't.

Granted, when you're six foot eight inches of sinewy scarred muscle in an eye patch, blending can be considered to be a difficulty, but SOME effort could be made. Kenpachi, as near as Urahara could figure out, had decided to fuck it completely (it wasn't like sedate clothing would do anything to hide his killing intent).

Hence his current outfit. Black jeans. Dingy grayish (it might have been white at one point) t-shirt. Battered black leather vest. Studded finger-less black leather gloves. Normal eye patch and spike-and-bell hairdo. All of it generously (if not outrageously) accented by steel chains or studs.

Kenpachi glared at Urahara; he'd been getting stares within ten seconds of showing up in the living world. Sure, it had been fun watching would-be toughs and punks shit themselves when he made eye-contact, but it was getting boring and a little bit irritating at this point. Though it probably didn't help that Kisuke's shaking seemed to have to do more to do with laughing hysterically than fear. "You busy?" It was left unsaid that Kenpachi would probably clear his schedule if it was...violently, he would imagine.

Kisuke got his giggles under control and gestured for him to come in; the sooner he got Kenpachi's killing reiatsu into the sealed interior of the shop, the sooner Ururu would stop scanning the battlefield. Granted, it might be funny to watch her send Kenpachi flying; the problem was that the cost of that particular giggle would end up being paid in flying little-girl limbs.

He paused at the entrance letting Kenpachi go ahead. "Oh, and Jinta? Ururu? Take the rest of the day off; we're going to need some repair work, possibly by the end of the day."

"How much?" Ururu asked; it was weird watching how quickly she could calm down.

Kisuke considered it seriously for a moment; just how much damage could Zaraki Kenpachi inflict at 20 capacity against his own, currently unchecked full power?

He sweat-dropped. "The whole store, possibly.

--

"Teach me Bankai."

Kisuke froze. Very deliberately putting down the tea, he looked at Kenpachi for a long moment. "Huh?"

Kenpachi pulled a beer out of somewhere and popped the tab with the ease of long practice. "I heard that you have some special trick to learn Bankai in three days; that's what Ichigo used. Teach it to me."

Kisuke 'hmmed' as he tapped his lip with his fan; he wasn't really thinking, he was just wondering who'd ratted him out. Well, that and trying to decide how to punish them for it...maybe make them pay for the repairs to the Shoten. "Sorry, can't do it. I DO have some very nice..."

Kenpachi flicked the tab of his beer at Kisuke's head; he barely missed lodging it in the hat. Slowly rising, he pounded the beer and tossed it to the side. "Well, that's a real shame." He grinned creepily. "Still, no point wasting a trip. Heard you used to be a captain; you're that clown-freak Mayuri's boss, or something, right?"

Kisuke didn't know where Kenpachi's' zanpakuto came from; truth be told, he wasn't sure he wanted to. All he knew was that seemingly out of nowhere a chipped, battered katana was leveled at his head. Kenpachi's grin widened. "Had to put up with that shit about sealing my power; like the patch ain't enough. Still," he added menacingly as his free left hand went for his eye patch, "that just means I don't need to start easy on you."

Kisuke smiled as his fan pushed the point of Kenpachi's zanpakuto away from his face. "Now, now, I just said I can't teach you bankai. I never said I wasn't willing to help." Pulling a flask of sake out of one of his inner pockets, he handed it to Kenpachi and sat down, the patched-one following a second later. Kisuke waggled the fan at Kenpachi warningly. "Now then, the problem is that before you can achieve Bankai, you have to achieve Shikai. THAT, I can help you with."

Kenpachi frowned, though that might have had more to do with the fact he was already out of booze. "I thought I already WAS using Shikai, something about constant-release or something." He hadn't really been paying attention to the old fart when he'd explained it.

Kisuke snorted. "Please. Shikai isn't just a shape-change, it always entails something that happens to work particularly well with your style of fighting. What you have is a zanpakuto that you know how to channel killing power through." He paused. "I'm actually a bit curious as to how you managed to channel your reiatsu through the blade without ever releasing it."

Kenpachi shrugged. "Dunno. Fucking thing kept on getting chipped; pissed me off having to get it sharpened and polished. One time it got so bad that the blade wouldn't even cut; I started swinging even harder, than all of a sudden it started cutting again." He shrugged. "I stopped thinking about it, and it was dull again. Turned out I needed to think about cutting and people bleeding to get it to work."

Kisuke stared at him from behind his fan; that actually made a sort of morbid sense. "...fair enough. Anyway, you need to achieve a rapport with you zanpakuto to gain the power of its shikai state, and as it is, you can't."

"Why not?"

"How good are you at sensing other people's reiatsu?"

Kenpachi frowned. "...pretty shitty at that. Always have been." He shrugged philosophically as he looked around for more sake. "Bad at kido too, and never bothered to learn shunpo or hakuda. I use what works."

Kisuke almost snickered; it was oddly refreshing to come across a captain who was willing to admit to his faults so openly. Sure, it had more to do with him not giving a shit than anything else, but it was still refreshing after having to work with people like Tousen and Byakuya. "Fair enough. But that's a problem; your zanpakuto is a part of your spiritual power, but it's itself at the same time."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

Kisuke sighed. "Okay, let's start at the beginning. Zanpakuto are made of reishi, gathered from whatever happened to be available at the time when you first manifested your zanpakuto. What makes it special is that it's held together by your own reiatsu, and because of that it takes on similar traits to you; it's a reflection of your soul in some respects, or more accurately, it's a reflection of what you feel necessary to fight."

"I need somethin' I can cut with to fight; fuck else is there?"

Kisuke sighed melodramatically, his fan raised to the heavens. "Oh dear. You see Kenpachi, it is precisely that attitude that prevents you from achieving Shikai." He waggled his fan at his guest. "Think of it this way; you need something else, something deeper you use to fight in order to achieve Shikai, or at the very least you need something specific. You don't have Shikai. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that there's SOMETHING missing in your fighting style." He shrugged. "You follow?"

Kenpachi digested that silently; it made sense. Which put Kisuke a few hundred pegs above Mayuri in his book; fucker never did make any sense. "Okay, so I need something else. Fork it over."

Kisuke wanted to laugh. Dear sweet merciful gods he wanted to laugh.

But Kenpachi would either kill him or trash the shop, and he could get cheaper laughs. And so, he decided to be kind and help. "What you need, Kenpachi, is to establish a rapport with your zanpakuto. When you created it the first time, you poured a piece of your soul out of your body into the shape of a sword. The problem is that you don't know what piece it was, and until you do, you're not going to be able to do anything with it." He raised his fan to forestall the obvious, blunt questioning. "The problem as I see it is that you're simply too powerful. Spirit energy rushes out of you like a torrent, floods the world around you like a bank of fog. Trying to dredge through all that power to find something that is frankly unnecessary isn't easy under the best of circumstances." He shrugged. "There's a reason, after all, that most soul reapers discover their Shikai while they're power is still relatively low."

Kenpachi glared at him. "Look, you gonna help, or are you just gonna talk at me?"

Kisuke sighed. He DID want to help; if nothing else, the scientist in him was eaten alive with curiosity; what WOULD Kenpachi's fighting urge manifest itself as? The problem was twofold; first, what did he have that could help Kenpachi establish rapport with his shikai? It would have to be something quick and effective (he wasn't exactly the patient type), and any risk to him likely wouldn't matter. The second, and far bigger problem in Kisuke's mind was to wonder where they could perform something like this with any real hope of the shop surviving it?

Well, that narrowed it down quite a bit.

Kisuke paused. And grinned slowly. That could work. "Tessai, go open the back room, combination 23-6-49." His grin shifted; it was a rare thing to give Kenpachi the creeps.

"We're going to use the Kusa Tsuchi technique." (grass hammer)

--

What is the grass hammer, you might ask? Why on earth would you name a technique for awakening Shikai 'grass hammer?'

The truth is that it's not particularly MEANT for Shikai; it's essentially an extremely dangerous, if extremely EFFECTIVE deep meditation technique. It can be used to establish a truly deep understanding of one's reiatsu, to delve into depths of the psyche and soul that the conscious mind was never meant to survey.

In Kisuke's case, it was part of the reason why he was both so brilliant and so...off. Though whether that has to do with a too-deep understanding of his own soul or from the...experiences…he was able to have with Benihime as a result of the super-deep meditation is up in the air.

To properly perform Kusa Tsuchi meditation requires three things. Firstly, you must have a relatively small room formed in part with Seki-seki, designed not to disrupt reiatsu but to reflect it...inward. Secondly, you must have a quantity of specific herbal medication intended to cause a relaxing effect on the parts of the mind and spirit that constrain spiritual power. Third, you need a hammer; a rubber mallet is best (to ensure that there's no permanent brain damage or death), though in Kenpachi's case, a twelve-pound sledgehammer would be used.

The actual action of the meditation is as follows; you lock the person to perform the meditation within the room with the herbs and a brazier. Burning the herbs releases fumes, which, when inhaled in the presence of spiritual power, causes a deep relaxation, loosening the bonds and unblocking the pathways between the conscious and the unconscious, while simultaneously causing the meditating person to release all of their spiritual energy quite quickly. Because the room is designed to internally reflect and contain spirit power, it forcibly inundates the one meditating in their own spiritual power; it typically causes hallucinations formed along the guidelines of inner 'demons' that have yet to be slain.

Finally, the hammer (which would be rigged to be swung by outside sources) is released, causing sufficient blunt force trauma to the head to induce unconsciousness, thus finalizing the removal of the constraints of the subconscious, the vast mental realm in which the Shinigami's zanpakuto, among other things, dwells.

Paring off all the techno/psycho-babble, it amounts to this; lock someone up, get 'em stoned, and bash 'em in the head. This forces their mind and subconscious to meet and duke it out.

And while it would certainly provide an opportunity for Kenpachi's to achieve shikai, it also provided Kisuke with a wonderful photo op (not that he'd ever USE the photos of Zaraki Kenpachi sitting there drooling and staring into space...they were insurance of a sort).

Still, the amount of drool could be taken to indicate that it was time.

Kisuke dropped the hammer, and Kenpachi dropped into his own mind.

--

It was dark in his mind, Kenpachi thought idly as he started trying to find his shikai.

It was seen as folly by many, Kenpachi's eye patch. While they certainly appreciated the fact that they typically only had to deal with at best a third of Kenpachi's suffocating reiatsu, it was still considered foolish to cover an eye. Not even to mechanically restrain his power, but to cover his eye.

Without depth perception, you can't accurately gauge the distance of your cut. Kaname Tousen was an exception, because his depth perception wasn't based on sight. Kenpachi's was. Or at least should be.

It would come as little surprise to people to know that Kenpachi's mind was dark, and worked in ways that seemed far from normal for a human.

What most people wouldn't realize is that is precisely what makes him so dangerous.

He adapts to an eye patch flawlessly because regardless of what he sees, he doesn't act on sight. His hearing is sound and flawless, but he doesn't particularly care about what he hears. The smell of blood in his animal-keen nostrils is particularly pleasing to him, but it excites almost nothing in him.

There is nothing wrong with Kenpachi's senses; if anything, they're better than most people's. But none of that matters, because his senses, his thoughts, even his desires are secondary; he fights, lives, and acts purely on instinct, instinct so profound that is the next thing to a 6th sense.

The darkness of Kenpachi's mind is meaningless to him; he doesn't need to see to navigate it, he feels it.

A pause.

All but there, a place that is closed to him, a place that he cannot feel now.

It is not fear but excitement that motivates him to journey into the unknown. Zaraki Kenpachi has lived for millennia as a dead man, and nearly every moment of his death, he has been seeking a greater opponent.

What could be greater, more powerful, more frightfully wonderful than the shards of his brutal, bizarre mind, shards so terrible that he has locked them away?

He makes his way into the gloom by feel; there is no sound, no shape. Truth be told, it could be said that there isn't even Kenpachi; his awareness moves, but there is no shape. There is no sideways skyscraper here, no form, there is only darkness and intuitive knowledge.

But as he reaches the threshold of his awareness, everything...shifts.

--

Sight and smell and hearing and touch flood his senses with a jarring return. He is only aware of them by their presence; there isn't much to sense here. He's dimly aware that his body is back, clothed not in his shinigami robes but in the loose, grimy, dark green kimono he wore when he first set foot in Seireitei. Candles line wall sconces in what feels like an underground tunnel; they light the darkness, but only so far as he can feel.

Kenpachi frowned as he walked forward; he could smell old sweat and fear in the tunnel ahead, and it irritates him. It would surprise the other soul reapers to no end if they ever found out, but he had little interest in fear. Fear ends the battle before it can begin; only when fear is marshaled and overcome can a battle worth fighting be fought.

He walked further, the smells becoming secondary concerns as a light, rasping sound greets his ears; breathing. Awake breathing, but there's something wrong with the sound. Frowning he broke into a spring. The candle-lit corridor swept by in a flash as he closed the distance, until he was close enough to see.

Whatever he'd been expecting...this wasn't it.

The end of the corridor was marked by an X-shaped cross made of rough wooden planks bound in iron on each end. Chains dangled from the walls, chains and manacles so deep that you could no longer see the stone under them.

But what caught the eye and held it was the woman, gagged, bound, and blind-folded dangling from the wooden frame.

It took a few minutes to realize, but she was beautiful; it just took some time to get beyond the leather and chains. She would have been tall released, not quite six feet tall, long of limb and slender. Her skin was so pale it was almost white, but a healthy pallor; her skin was pale because she was meant to be pale. Long black hair reached almost to her feet, covering in many places skin that despite fresh scratches and welts was still lush and healthy.

But all that paled by what she wore; corset and leggings and full-length gloves in skin-tight black leather, what looked like a sleeping mask serving as a blind-fold, ball-gag in her mouth...she was a centerfold out of an S&M magazine.

And Kenpachi could think of only one thing.

"You gotta be fuckin' kidding me."

--

There are times in our lives when we have to stop and reflect. If nothing else, there are times in our lives when we are shown a thing that CLEARLY is a sign from the heavens that you need to stop and do some serious deep thinking.

Discovering that buried in the depths of your psyche is some aspect of your mind represented as an S&M bottom, and that somehow this is supposed to make you invincible in combat?

Yeah, that qualifies as a time to seriously consider some rethinking of your worldview.

Well, that or to knock of all the kinky-ass doujinshi, but while that applies to a surprising number of people, that didn't work for Kenpachi.

Neither did the whole 're-ordering your life' thing or deep thinking part.

As such, his response to the rather surreal vision before him was blunt, immediate, and too the point.

Roughly shoving his hand into the depths of the corset, he paused long enough to make sure he had a solid grip, and bodily tore the woman out of the chains. The fact that the rather impressive-looking steel chains broke before the rather thin leather corset did was noted by some part of his mind. The fact that none of the woman's bones broke in the process was noted by a far more conscious portion of him.

The sharp scream, both pained and startled was also duly noted.

He hadn't bothered trying to catch her or even to slow her fall; he let her collapse, staring at her balefully. "You gotta be shitting me. YOU'RE supposed to be my zanpakuto? Where the fuck did that come from?"

The woman froze; she'd been startled by his voice earlier, but now...now she was free...and he was here...

...and finally, she was wanted. Desired. Necessary.

Slowly, she pushed herself to her knees, head bowed. Faster, but no less carefully, she took out the ball-gag, licking her lips and swallowing uncomfortably, trying to get comfort back into her mouth and throat. The blind-fold followed moments later, revealing a piercing pair of golden eyes. Slowly, she looked up, taking the measure of her other half.

In many ways he was as she'd expected. In others, he was different.

She'd always known that he would be strong, that his strength would be honest, bared for all the world to see. She'd known he would be imposing, terrifying even.

What she hadn't expected was for him to seem so...distant. So uncaring.

No, that was a lie; she'd known he wouldn't care. That was why she was here after all; he had never wanted or really needed her, and so he'd shut her away somewhere until he did.

She'd have to at least TRY to make him pay for that, regardless of how good it felt to finally be acknowledged by him.

She rose gracefully to her full height, her piercing golden eyes meeting his flat black ones. He frankly regarded her naked body for a moment before settling on her eyes. Moments passed before he carelessly shrugged, massaging his neck in seeming boredom. "Got decent eyes at least; looks like you got some fight in you after all."

She sighed. "You look ridiculous. And frankly, I'm not impressed."

He blinked; considering how she looked, he'd been expecting something more...well, broken. This was...actually, she was acting a bit closer to what he could believe as his power. He considered her for a long moment before he finally spoke again. "So hat-and-clogs says you and I need to talk to figure out how I can get more powerful." He glared at her. "Talk."

She scoffed. "You've kept me chained in here for centuries, and you think it's going to be that easy?" She glared at him. "Even if I wanted to give you the power you need for Shikai, you wouldn't be able to use it. If you expect to wield me, you're going to have to prove that you'll use me properly."

He glared right back at her. "Hey, who the fuck do you think you are?"

The slow, sensual grin took him aback; he wasn't sure why, but that actually creeped him out (twice in one day; a new record). "Who I am? You're going to have to earn that too, little boy. But...I can tell you what I am," she whispered. She slid her hands back, unzipping her corset, letting it fall to the ground. Her gloves followed, then her boots. She paused for a moment, meeting his eyes...and slowly, she took off her collar.

And the world exploded in molten-hot gold.

It actually stunned him. Stunned him, Zaraki Kenpachi, the sheer magnitude of the reiatsu pounding him. Golden eyes gleaming, glowing, she stared him down, eyes wild. "I am your power Zaraki Kenpachi, the reiatsu that you've chained away. Everything that you won't use, I AM. And frankly speaking, I'm stronger than you are."

She never even saw him move; all she knew was that one moment she was inundating his inner world in a golden blaze, and the next it was him who was blazing, and she was lying twenty feet away, the pain of a gut punch fading slowly in her stomach.

Zaraki glared at her. "You're my power, ya dumb bitch. You think that scares me?"

Her laughter brought him up short. "Of course you're afraid of your power." She looked up at him softly, mockingly. "Why else would you wear that eye patch? Why are you so willing...eager even to come here to the mortal world, where they can seal your power away from you?"

"I wear the patch 'cause it makes the fights interesting," he snapped.

"You wear the patch because you think you need to be weak," she snapped right back, coughing a moment later. Damn if he hadn't hit her hard. "You struggle desperately to be as weak as the rest of them. Not because you care about them, not because you WANT to be like them. No, you just make yourself weak because you want to make sure that you have to put your all into the fight, so that every moment of the fight might be your last, so that the fight makes you feel alive."

"I like to fight," he growled at her. "I grew up fighting, I lived fighting, I died fighting, and I fight while I'm dead. I LOVE to fight," he growled. "The fuck's wrong with that?"

"You love to fight," she agreed. "The problem is that you don't fight to win." She forced herself to her knees, then her feet, swaying a bit; he'd reclaimed all the power here, and it was making her dizzy, being without all that power for the first time. "You hate winning, or at the very least you prefer not to win. Winning means its over, that there's nothing left. At least if you lose, it means that there's someone you can try and go back to struggle with." Her golden eyes met his, and for all that she hadn't a shred of power, they pierced hotly. "You didn't come here to gain power for the sake of power, Kenpachi. You didn't come here because you lost, and you want to win. You came here because you lost, and you want to make sure that the next time you lose, it takes longer to get there."

He blanked at that.

She shook her head sorrowfully; she was actually ecstatic inside, but she needed to make him see something else. "I'm your power Kenpachi, and what did you do with me? You cast me aside, locked me away, pushed me so deep that it took the smartest man in the history of Seireitei to show you how to find me again. You pushed me aside because your power makes you all but invincible. And because you knew, deep down that if you didn't push me aside, soon there'd be no one left to fight." Her eyes met his again, and he found he couldn't look aside. "No one left to fight. No one to cut, no one to challenge you...the one thing in the world that frightens you Kenpachi." She paused. "Well, as close to fright as you can get," she conceded.

He glared at her, but there was no heat in it. He couldn't hate her for what she'd told him; truth wasn't something he'd ever had a problem with. He might not like it, but...

His head drooped. But it made sense. It made too god-damned much sense.

And he couldn't think of a single way to get any further than he was.

He started as he felt her hand on his cheek. Looking up dumbly, he found himself staring into her eyes.

"What limits you isn't power, or will, or perseverance, or courage, Kenpachi. You're stronger than nearly any man that there even COULD be. What limits you is that you've never been able to find anything that made you feel as alive as battle; you've always lived for the fight alone." She stared deep into his eyes. "There will ALWAYS be an opponent worth fighting, but the battles worth fighting are few and far between. There will always be strong men, but they won't ever be in the same place for you. Let it go, Kenpachi. Let it fall, your obsession. Don't take glory in being weak, weak enough to be at risk, take glory in being strong." Her eyes blazed as she gazed hotly into his eyes. "You are of Zaraki, survivor of the worst hell that the Soul Reapers could create to forge a man. You are the Kenpachi, he who is strongest, most fierce in battle, he who most loves to spill blood. That is your name, your title, and history. Glory in them, Kenpachi!"

There was no power to her now, he had taken it all...and yet somehow, he seemed...less. Because for the first time in his life, he felt something.

Awe.

He'd always known he was strong; he'd always known he was stronger than anyone else. He'd loved strength, been obsessed with it.

And standing before him was the single most powerful being he could ever imagine.

She looked past him, her eyes blazing with blood-lust. "They're out there now, Kenpachi. Strong opponents, strong enough to challenge you. They've come, they're waiting for something worth killing. Every person with even a dreg of spiritual energy, they're hunting them." Her smile turned half-crazed, a grin that nearly every shinigami alive would recognize from the time it spent on Kenpachi's face. "But they don't sense you. They don't know you're here. But they're out there...waiting to do battle...waiting to kill..." she smirked as her tongue darted out, licking his ear as she whispered hotly. "...or be killed."

And the world shattered.

She stood, watching as everything fell apart, as her master returned to the world that he was a part of, not the sum of. She hadn't told him her name, but he knew her now, he would remember her now.

And the opponents he might face were strong...perhaps strong enough.

She smiled; the world was breaking, but that didn't matter; SHE wouldn't shatter. She DID the shattering.

She shivered in delight. She was finally going to get to come out and play.

--

The damage to Urahara Shoten was surprisingly light, all told. Kenpachi's power had been sealed to 20 before he was allowed to come to Karakura, on top of the fact that his eye patch cut him down by nearly 70 to begin with. He was operating at a bare 6 of what he could normally do.

So rather than incinerating the shop as Kisuke had feared, the damage was mostly local; he'd trashed the Seki-Seki shed, blown apart the trapdoor that had led there, shattered the plaster walls of the hallway, and essentially reduced the sliding paper-and-lath door to powder.

Kisuke watched him charge off, the half-glazed look in his eyes fading under the adrenaline rush of a fight in the air. He shook his head; he could tell that something had worked from the meditation. Maybe not Shikai, not yet anyway, but close.

And with those Arrancar on the way...

He shook his head, chuckling. He only hoped those little camera-birds he'd made would survive the clash, or he'd never get to see how the fight turned out.

--

Eduard smirked darkly at...Ikkaku, that was his name. The look of shock on his face was priceless; he really hadn't stopped to even consider the implications of what it meant to be a hollow with a zanpakuto. Had he honestly expected something as simple as a different weapon? If so, he was a fool. "What you see in front of you is my actual form." He grinned, chambering one massive fist. "Now, with Volcanica in my grasp, you'll finally get a taste of my true power."

The fist descended. Fire erupted.

And Ikkaku's eyes bulged.

"The fuck's wrong with you?" Kenpachi grinned at Ikkaku as the flames licked vainly against his back. "You mean to tell me you're letting this pansy beat you bloody?"

Ikkaku stared. Kenpachi showing up was strange enough but...was he...interfering...hey, wait second...had he just implied he was WEAK?! "...wh...wh...WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! I'M JUST GETTING WARMED UP!" Ikkaku stabbed an indignant finger at his opponent. "HE GOT LUCKY, THAT'S IT! I DIDN'T HAVE A CHANCE TO DO THE LUH-LUH-LUCKY DANCE BEFORE THE FIGHT, THAT'S IT! THAT'S THE ONLY REASON HE'S WINNING! I'LL KICK HIS ASS SO HARD - !!"

Kenpachi started laughing uproariously, hand clasped to his forehead. A few seconds later, he grinned down at his third-seat. "That's good! That's what I wanted to hear." Shouldering his zanpakuto, he looked around. "No...no...maybe – no, not there..." he froze. And grinned. No, he GRINNED. "Yeah. That's him, that's my man. And Ichigo's fighting him already...bonus." Crouching, he exploded upward, leaping away from the fight.

Ikkaku gaped, then turned. "Yumichika, what the fuck just happened?"

Yumichika was staring himself. "I...I think that taicho just sensed the reiatsu to find out who the strongest opponent would be."

Ikkaku's eyes bulged. "WHAT?! He's worse at sensing spiritual pressure than I AM!"

Yumichika smiled faintly. "It seems that our dear blood-thirsty barbarian has started learning control." He nodded politely at a somewhat shell-shocked Eduard. "Considering how limited taicho's power is right now, that blast would normally have knocked even him off his feet, probably doing some not inconsiderable damage. You didn't notice it, did you?"

"Notice what?"

"You didn't feel any spiritual pressure from him, did you? He must have focused it all at his back to block the flames."

Ikkaku stared. "Wait, Zaraki Kenpachi was manipulating his reiatsu?" He paused. "Hey, if he can do that...and he's going to a fight..." his eyes bulged. "EXTEND, HOZUKIMARU!"

Eduard managed to shake off his shock; he had no idea what had just happened, but it looked like the fight was about to resume. He frowned at the spear in his opponent's hands. "Is that all you're zanpakuto is capable of? I feel a bit cheated after all your talk."

Ikkaku glared at him. "Look pal, let me explain this to you. That was Zaraki Kenpachi, captain of the 11th squad. He ain't ever controlled his power, and back there, he did for the first time. Which means he's got some sort of trick up his sleeve, and he's going to hit even HARDER than I've ever seen before. Plus, he's tracking down whoever's the toughest one of you out there to pick a fight." He smirked. "And buddy, that's something I GOTTA see. So as much as it goes against the grain to do this, I'm gonna have to finish this fast."

Eduard scoffed. "You think that spear is enough to defeat me?" He smirked. "Be grateful that you're about to die by my hand. As powerful as I am, I'm nothing but a peon compared to Grimmjow, who you're captain is no doubt about to face. Be grateful you won't have to witness the defeat of your beloved captain."

Yumichika frowned thoughtfully. Certainly the arrancar seemed to be exceeding their expectations; it was likely that wasn't pure bluff. "I suppose I really ought to try and do something about that." He flipped out his inter-dimensional cell phone. And paused. "He's right, Ikkaku, Hozukimaru won't be enough."

Ikkaku nearly tripped; he felt like he'd just been slapped in the face. "WHAT?!"

Yumichika smiled beatifically. "Well, certainly you can defeat him with Hozukimaru, but are you certain you can do it quickly enough? We have no idea how long it will take us to track down taicho, and there's always the possibility that he could beat this...Grimmjow, was it? This Grimmjow before you do."

Ikkaku snarled, his reiatsu flaring wildly. "Goddamnit I hate it when y ou're right." He glared at Eduard. "You better be fuckin' grateful, 'cause this is the only time anyone other than Yumichika or Renji's seen this. And nothing but the chance to watch taicho turn some dumbass inside out would make me pull this out when I don't need it."

"BANKAI!"

To be continued.

I'm not going to bother recounting Ikkaku's fight; while it's one of the coolest in the series to date, I can't really think of anything I want to add to it, so it'll be going more or less unchanged from the point where Ikkaku releases his bankai. As for Kenpachi, I promise the next segment will show what his Shikai actually does.

--

Kenpachi's one visible eyebrow rose. "You been holdin' out on me? I don't remember seein' that move when we fought."

Ichigo felt like crying. He had, moments before, fired off his black Getsuga Tenshou at Grimmjow. Upon seeing the largely superficial damage inflicted by it and considering the implications of using that move repeatedly, he'd come to the quick conclusion that he was, for the most part, fucked. Followed shortly thereafter by the INCREDIBLY idiotic assumption that if nothing else, things couldn't possibly get any worse.

At which point Kenpachi had shown up.

He'd nearly cried.

Grimmjow stared at the newly arrived captain, for several reasons. First...well, it was Kenpachi in punk-thug clothing, and even among the weirdoes in Hueco Mundo, that kind of clothing and hair-cut would have stood out. Added to that was the unmistakable fact that while he had what seemed to be a pretty respectable reiatsu, he was still weaker than Kurosaki...who was currently cowering and all but soiling himself. Confusing, that.

Mainly though...it was weird. He KNEW that Kenpachi wasn't putting out anywhere near the amount of power it would take to so much as scratch him, he KNEW that he was the strongest on the field right now, followed by that Ichigo guy and then on down the list...and yet every shred of instinct he had was screaming 'caution' about Kenpachi.

Which in turn pissed him off. "Hey, who's the one-eyed dumb-shit? Don't tell me that pansy's supposed to be your back-up or something."

Ichigo gaped. The idea of someone referring to Kenpachi as a pansy was just...he couldn't actually think of the word, actually. It was just...bizarre. Though come to think of it, he did feel weaker...he frowned. "What the hell is going on?"

"He's been sealed," Rukia managed painfully as she forced herself to a sitting position. "Do you remember what Renji told you? Any soul-reaper of Vice-Captain rank or higher is restricted to 20 power."

Grimmjow's eyes widened. "So you're trying to pick a fight with me at low power?" He heard something squeaking, and it took a moment to realize it was his teeth grinding together. "Give me a fucking BREAK!"

No one saw it. No one was sure HOW Grimmjow had done it.

What they did know was that somehow, Kenpachi's left arm was flying through the air, trailing a comet's tail of blood behind it.

He staggered back, eyes (presumably; the visible one anyway) wide. Surprisingly, he didn't grasp at his stump; doing so would have required dropping his sword, after all.

Grimmjow snorted disdainfully. "This is a joke. You're supposed to be one of the captains we're not allowed to tangle with? Give me a break." He raised a hand, reishi crackling around it as he prepared to unleash a cero blast.

Said hand stopped as Kaname Tousen grabbed it.

Grimmjow whirled, but didn't do anything more violent than glaring at the ex-captain. "What the fuck do you want?"

"Hey! Butt out, fuck-stick! I already kicked your ass once; you're not worth killing."

Grimmjow's eyes widened. He turned his head, ignoring whatever Tousen had been about to say in favor of staring at Kenpachi. Bizarrely enough, his reiatsu actually seemed to have risen with the loss of his arm. "Are you actually challenging me? In case it's escaped your notice, you're down an arm, ugly."

Kenpachi snorted as the sheath on his sword dissolved, freeing the battered blade. "You blind or something?" His reiatsu flared dangerously. "I fight with my right arm, yaoi-bait."

"Yeah! Ken-chan fights with his right arm, you yaoi-bait fuck-stick!"

The adorable little voice saying that last line was odd enough that reality itself seemed to agree, what with the little record-needle screech sound effect.

Kenny frowned as he turned to the voice, prepared to reprimand Yachiru for using unforgiveable curses (he'd be god-damned if he ever let the Y-word out of her mouth), when he paused. She was dressed, not in her standard soul-reaper uniform, but rather a pair of hooded pink feety pajamas, a fluffy white puff-ball tail on the bottom, and fluffy pink rabbit ears attached to the hood.

It had been literally centuries since he'd last seen her in her fighting uniform.

Grimmjow just stared. This was supposed to be pretty cut and dried; head down to the material world with a bunch of cannon-fodder and wipe out anyone who seemed worth the effort. Finding an actual challenge wasn't a problem; if anything, he was glad for that. Now? This was just getting really weird; what the hell was the brat in pink pj's supposed to be?

--

"God that sucked; fucking hate fighting pyros."

"Now, now Ikkaku, you did quite well beating him so quickly."

Ikkaku grunted irritably as he grudgingly leaned on Yumichika's shoulder; he didn't mind Yumi, it was more the fact that he'd gotten that beaten up. He just hoped that he'd killed that bastard quickly enough to get to watch the fight.

At which point Yumi dropped him.

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT FOR?!" Best friends or no, he was going to beat the shit out of the fruity little fifth-seat for that...at least that was the plan before he noticed how pale Yumi had become. "What the hell?" Yumichika just pointed a single, shaking finger.

Ikkaku just looked, his eyes widening at the sight of a one-armed Kenpachi standing there. "What the...who could have done that to taicho?"

"Not. Taicho," Yumi whispered. "Yachiru's here."

Ikkaku blinked; what the hell did that matter? It wasn't like this was the first time the little sociopath had ever seen blood. He looked...

And nearly peed himself. "...Oh god...not the bunny pajamas..."

Yumichika nodded slowly...miserably.

Keigo just stared; he'd gone into shock right around the time that guy had transformed and started throwing fire, and was deep enough in shock that the sight of Ichigo, Rukia, and some scary-looking guy who'd just lost an arm didn't phase him all that much anymore. Still, he had to ask. "That little kindergartener? What's so bad about her being in cute pjs?"

Yumichika was still too deep in his personal fear-induced hell to answer; Ikkaku did for him. "I'm the second strongest man in the 11th division, but only because the REAL second strongest is a girl."

Keigo did a double-take. "Wait, her?"

Ikkaku shuddered. "That's not the worst; Kenpachi might be more blood-thirsty and powerful than she is, but Yachiru...there's no one else in the entire Seireitei who's...innocent about it. And she. Scares. The piss. Out of me."

At which point Keigo decided to say the accursed words.

"Oh come on, how bad could she be?"

No one was entirely sure how or why, but somehow every temple bell in Karakura somehow sounded the peal of doom at that exact instant.

"...I'm sure that was a coincidence."

"You wish," Ikkaku managed.

--

There are some things in this world that are too great, too powerful, too unstoppable for mere mortals to counteract.

"Please-please-please-please-please-please-please-please-please-please-please-please-please-please-please-please-please-please-please-please-please-PLEASE?"

This includes the nigh-unstoppable power of a kindergartener's whining when either a) she knows you're not really going to stop her from doing it or b) doesn't care what you DO try to do to stop it.

"God damnit, for the last time NO!"

Fortunately for all concerned, Zaraki Kenpachi is no mere mortal. Or was, even when he was mortal.

"WAH! Ken-chan's being greedy!"

Even Yachiru's deadly 'I'm a bunny with puppy-eyes and a little-kitty pout,' an attack that had ACTUALLY worked against Kurotsuchi Mayuri was having little effect.

(It should be noted that the I'm-a-bunny-with-puppy-eyes-and-a-little-kitty-pout technique normally causes a slow degradation of thought processes until the target stares helplessly at the target, a glazed smile on their face and a vacant look in their eyes (not unlike the effects of the even more deadly "I'm-a-Chiyo-chan-penguin" technique). In Mayuri's case however, the attack worked by causing him to stare in horrified awe and run away screaming that some sort of mutant-psychokinetic-lagomorph intended to devour his soul).

"He cut my fuckin' arm off! There's no WAY I'm passing up a chance to fight somebody who can do that. Besides, I never said you couldn't fight, I just said that you have to fight the blind fuck-stick, not the yaoi-bait."

Yachiru paused in her adorable pleading. "But I thought you beat worm-head yourself." She settled for a decidedly less deadly pout. "You're just trying to hog all the GOOD fights!"

"HELL YES I AM!"

Grimmjow stared. He gaped. He goggled. Finally, in desperation, he slowly turned to Tousen. "What the fuck is wrong with these people?"

"They're eleventh division," Kaname stated testily, an answer that would have been perfectly satisfactory to ANYONE from Soul Society.

In Grimmjow's case though, this didn't mean a damn thing. And however blind Kaname Tousen might have been (in both the literal and metaphorical sense), even he could hear the stony incomprehension. Sighing, he elaborated. "The Eleventh Division is filled with fools who only exist to do battle. They lack refinement, any understanding of the higher arts, and," he spat out, "they deny the existence of justice."

Grimmjow fought the urge to backhand Tousen; the stupid little shit went on and on about that justice crap whenever anyone was in listening range, and he sincerely doubted that there was a single arrancar in all of Hueco Mundo who wouldn't have LOVED the chance to slowly eviscerate him. Unfortunately, for whatever bizarre reason, Aizen seemed to think he was useful, which precluded any of the joyfully sadistic things that could have been done to him (in particular, Grimmjow was praying for the day that Szayyel took him into his lab, citing that since his experiments would no doubt benefit more people than it hurt, it was just).

Still, if nothing else, they sounded like his kind of people. Then again... "So what's the deal with the rugrat? You expect me to believe that SHE'S some kind of badass fighting machine, or is she just a fuckin' mascot?"

Yachiru turned the full blast of her cutey-glare on Grimmjow. "You take that back!"

Kenpachi snagging her by the back of her hood was the only thing that kept her from launching herself at the 6th espada. "Oi, I told you, he's mine."

"But Ken-chaaaaaaaann..."

Kenpachi just grinned. "Worm-head over there wasn't very nice about the 11th. He said REALLY mean things about them, and you know what happens to people who don't say nice things."

Yachiru brightened up immediately. "You mean I get to nom-nom?" Seeing Kenpachi's approving grin, she squealed with delight before pulling her sword from its sheathe and placing the blade between her teeth.

There weren't many people who had seen Yachiru's shikai. Most of the ones who saw it tended to either repress it violently or die messily, and ended up being largely beyond any questioning. Still, of those who HAD seen her release and lived to tell about it, none had ever managed to successfully explain HOW she managed to enunciate her release phrase properly with the blade clenched between her teeth.

"Kajiro, Usagijotei!"

The adorable, utterly crazed little grin on her face would have been worrying on its own. The fact that it seemed to be inside a raging pink beast made out of almost captain-class reiatsu only made it more surreal.

Then the world exploded in pink.

Grimmjow stared; on the one hand, size had never meant much to him. He'd been relatively small as an Adjuchas himself, and knew better than to judge based on how big someone was. The one thing he HADN'T had to judge on was appearance, because that which LOOKED dangerous usually WAS dangerous.

And he was now staring at what looked like a five-year-old dressed in pink, hooded feety pajamas with bunny ears sewn onto the hood, radiating enough reiatsu to be...well, noticeable...and whose zanpakuto seemed to have disappeared.

Then again... "Nibble, Bunny Empress?" he asked incredulously.

Yachiru grinned, revealing what appeared to be pink plastic vampire fangs. If one had looked closely, they would have seen matching pink press-on nails. Grimmjow stared in shock. "THAT'S your shikai? Are you shitting me?"

Below Ikkaku shivered. Roaming through Rukongai, he'd once seen Yachiru tear her way through a horde of menos with those adorable-looking little chompers and silly-looking little nails. He wondered at times what might have happened if he'd ever accepted a sparring match from Yachiru without knowing what she was capable of.

He had nightmares about sparring with Yachiru.

He shivered again; clapping his hands twice, he closed his eyes in prayer for those poor schmucks who were soon to die.

Beside him, Yumichika frowned. He had a bit of a moral dilemma on his hands. On the one hand, judging from what Grimmjow could do, his captain would probably need all the help he could get. On the other hand...that meant Yachiru too.

Then again, he'd never particularly liked Tousen, and the man's fashion sense was inexcusable, even for a blind man. Moral dilemma assuaged, he cleared his throat.

"Taicho! Fuku-taicho! The Central 46 have approved provisional release!"

Both froze. Then Yachiru giggled happily.

Kenpachi GRINNED. "In that case, let's get this party started RIGHT!" he bellowed as he ripped off his eyepatch.

At which point all hell broke loose.

--

Grimmjow was used to power. He was Espada after all; it came with the territory. He'd seen releases, and even witnessed bankai on occasion (no, not Aizen's). Truth be told, he was used to the Resurrecion of the Arrancar, but even HE had never experienced a power fluctuation like that before; this lunatic's power level must have been at LEAST a dozen times what it had been. On the one hand, what he was currently facing was enough to be worrying. On the other hand...

"You were holding back? Against me?!"

Kenpachi smirked. "Yeah, stupid in hindsight. But if it makes you feel any better, it's only partly me; mostly it's those retards in Soul Society." He pointed to a fading tattoo. "Captains and vice-captains have to cut off 80 of our power when we come here. Fuckin' stupid in a combat situation I know, but I don't make the rules, I just complain about them all the time." He hefted the patch. "This on the other hand...this is all me. Cut's my power down to a third of what it should be. Makes the fight..." he LEERED, "...interesting."

Grimmjow responded with a brief sonido in front of him and a brutally fast right straight to the jaw, knocking Kenpachi flying. "Interesting, huh? Sorry, but I'm not impressed." He ducked immediately as Kenpachi's zanpakuto came around in a swift cut; ducking set him up for Kenpachi's knee to the chest.

For his part, Kenpachi was grinning. "Let's get impressing then, shall we?"

Grimmjow growled deep in his throat. "You fuckin..." he lashed out, fingers curled into claws, and nearly lost a few as Kenpachi's zanpakuto blocked, nearly proving superior to his Hierro.

Staggering back, he spat a quick burst of Cero at him, and felt his eyes bulge as Kenpachi swatted it to the side. Instinct more than intention made him sonido upward, where he stared at the 11th's captain, rage mixing with a certain grudging respect. "Alright, you want interesting? You want impressed?" He drew his zanpakuto. "Grind, Pantera!"

--

However epic the fight might have been, there was little use in describing it; Kenpachi, for all his raw power and vast experience was still essentially a swordsman. He was a particularly effective swordsman (if not particularly good, at least in a classical sense), but still, there was only so much he could do. Other captains always had the option of long-range attack, either from kido or their zanpakuto's released state. They could manage a tactical retreat via shunpo, or in the case of Soi Fon and Yoruichi, use it to get within range for a bare-handed pummeling that few survived.

Kenpachi however was a purist. It had taken some time to get used to the Sexta Espada's style, but he was holding his own at this point; he could easily block or dodge the attacks and was making devastating counter-assaults of his own.

There was just one...SLIGHT problem.

"STOP RUNNING, YOU FUCKING HAMSTER!"

Grimmjow smirked as he shot backwards, dodging Kenpachi's slash long enough to fire some of his elbow spikes at him. It didn't even slow him down, but it was pissing him off. "You're supposed to be a captain? I thought you guys were supposed to be masters of all the arts, or something stupid like that." He dodged another swipe. "All I've seen so far is a one-trick one-armed jackass."

Kenpachi glared at him; this was pissing him off. He didn't have the option of backing off, because he wasn't winning. THAT was acceptable. But he'd be god-DAMNED if he was going to retreat.

What made it worse was that he KNEW he could beat the squirrely little fucker; he'd managed to get one good slash in right near the beginning, and knew that he could easily win.

IF HE WOULD JUST STAY IN ONE PLACE LONG ENOUGH!

Had Grimmjow been slightly more honest with himself, he might have realized that on some level Kenpachi...unnerved him. He could respect a captain, sure; they had experience and all kinds of weird powers to bring to bear. He wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of someone who was so powerful, so dangerous that he could reach the same level by sheer stubborn brute force.

"Ne, Ken-chan! Do you need me to slow him down?"

A blood-stained Yachiru watched, grinning happily as she watched the beat-down. Ken-chan was fighting, and she'd gotten to fight too. As far as she was concerned, if that was so, all else was right with the world. She pouted a bit as she heard a groan from her cushion, and bopped it in the head to make it calm down.

In this case, it should be noted that the 'bop' in question was decidedly...squelchy.

It was surreal enough to slow Grimmjow down long enough for Kenpachi's strike to damn near take off Grimmjow's arm at the elbow. Belatedly, the espada took to the air, grimacing.

Keigo stared dully as the scene unfolded in front of him. He was in shock by this point. He KNEW he was in shock by this point, and frankly felt it was earned. But this...he turned to Ikkaku, a glassy stare on his face. "Um, excuse me, but that guy with the spiky hair who's fighting now...was that his severed arm that little girl was using to beat that blind guy?"

"I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about," Yumichika stated airily. He was pointedly NOT looking anywhere near the Pink Menace. "Certainly Zaraki-taicho has suffered a noticeable wound, but what you suggest is impossible."

"In other words, stop looking at her. There's nowhere for your mind to go but deeper into hell," Ikkaku advised.

Some part of Keigo's higher brain functions sparked. "Um...shouldn't it be that once you get low enough, there's nowhere to go but up? Or something like that?"

"Not in this case. Now shut up, you're distracting me."

Kenpachi stared at his bloodied sword. He could beat Grimmjow. He KNEW he could beat Grimmjow. But frankly, he was starting to reach the point where he didn't CARE about beating him; this was boring the hell out of him. And simultaneously pissing him off, which confused him, which in turn got him even more pissed off...it was a vicious cycle.

_Say it..._

He blinked owlishly; everything was starting to get a little bit hazy...slowing down for some reason. "The fuck..."

_Say it..._

She was pleading...she'd BEEN pleading for a while now, he just hadn't heard it. With a twinge of unfamiliar emotion (which most people would have identified as guilt), he wondered how long she'd been pleading.

Old habits though..._I don't need you to win; I can beat this fucker. I just need to get him closer._

I can make him come closer...I can make men do what I want them to do...well, most men...

He scowled as he watched Grimmjow close in on him in slow motion; he was already raising his sword to meet it. _How? You gonna make me faster, like the kid? You gonna give me a nice long sword like that Ichimaru?_ He snorted. _Maybe give me a pretty pink cloud of death attack like that fuckin' fruitcake?_ He steadied his blade, parrying and watching Grimmjow get back into motion. His scowl deepened; he wasn't even in the fight anymore, he was just acting on impulse while this crazy sword nagged him. _That's not me. That's not how I fight. That's nothing but tricks._ It shouldn't have been possible, but somehow he managed to glare into his own soul. _Tricks are shit in the end. People figure out tricks. People BEAT the fucking tricks. But strength is always real. If the other guy's stronger, then so be it. I can live with that, and I can die with it. But no. Fucking. Tricks._

Her sultry laugh actually surprised him. I'm YOU you stupid man! Insulting, but the playful tone remained. Would any sword of yours rely on a trick? A game? A pretty beam of destruction? No, silly boy. I'm you. I'm what you've always had, and never bothered to use. He could feel her looking at Ikkaku for a moment. Well, seldom bother to use.

Kenpachi blinked, turning to look at him for a moment. Ikkaku? The fuck does he have to do with this?

It's a big world out there, with so many complications. Is it because the world is complicated? Or is it because the world is full of fools who needlessly complicate things? The sword is nothing but a shape, the power a trick of the light. You of all people know that this is a big, simple world, and that all the tricks amount to nothing in the end.

And how much more...entertaining a world it would be, if only everyone could understand it.

Kenpachi froze; still locked in his self-induced time distortion, he was only dimly aware of Grimmjow pausing above him, hands raised to bring down his claws on Kenpachi's skull.

He didn't particularly care.

That voice...that sweet, perfect, utterly right voice. The voice that put simple, beautiful words to the feelings that he'd never needed to articulate. Who embodied everything he was, but had never bothered to describe...

The voice he wanted to give a name to...

Now say it, Zaraki Kenpachi. Cry havoc and kill! Kill or be Killed! That's all you need to know! That's all HE Needs to know! THAT IS THE THING OF IT! THE ONLY THING!

The growing ecstasy in her voice might have worried anyone else. To Kenpachi, it was the sweetest thing he'd ever heard.

GIVE A NAME, GIVE POWER TO THE ONE LAW, ZARAKI!

He could feel Grimmjow close, he could see the sharp excitement in Yachiru's eyes, hear Ikkaku's faith...

SAY IT! GIVE ME MY NAME! GIVE ME YOUR ORDERS, MY MASTER!

Time sped up.

Grimmjow was already moving far too fast to stop; he couldn't have possibly imagined ANYTHING that could stop him in the first place. Kenpachi was going to die.

Reiatsu burst around them.

Grimmjow's eyes bulged; somehow Kenpachi had slung his sword behind him, bracing it on his shoulder and back, and one-handed, had fended off Grimmjow's descending claws.

His back was to the shocked Espada. And yet somehow, he knew Kenpachi was smiling; not the crazed leer he had formerly greeted battle with, but a smile of pure, genuine pleasure.

It frightened him more than Kenpachi's madness could have.

"What's your name, bitch?"

Confusion managed to eclipse Grimmjow's surprise for a moment. "Huh?"

Kenpachi sighed blissfully.

"Rensa Heshiore, Kyouranaikouka" (Break the chains, Madness Lover)

And his blade exploded.

Grimmjow staggered as he felt the reiatsu blast into him, through him. Dust and glare clouded his eyes, but through it he could see a burning golden malevolence, a sirocco of berserk glee that was slowly swirling into a shape.

A shape that very much resembled a blade.

Grimmjow stared at him as he landed. "You still holding out against me?"

Kenpachi just chuckled as he turned to face the espada. "Oi, be nice to the lady. It's our first date." He lowered the blade, pointing the tip at him. "Let's try this one more time, huh?"

Grimmjow stared at him; after all the wounds he'd taken, Kenpachi was more blood than skin at this point. And he still thought he could win? "You fuckin' idiot...you can't win. Just give up"

Kenpachi laughed. "Oh, now I KNOW I'm gonna win. If you actually thought you were gonna beat me, you'd have just done it. But that?" He snickered. "You don't want to fight me anymore, do ya? 'Cause you know that I'm gonna beat you." He shouldered the energy blade. "Hell, you already know you've lost."

Grimmjow stared.

And felt white-hot rage boil up inside him.

"I'M gonna lose?" He grit his teeth; every bone in his body was shaking with suppressed fury. "I'M GONNA LOSE?!" Roaring, he charged, arm cocked back for a ripping slash.

Kenpachi parried easily, and stepping in, cut.

It was the first clean hit he'd gotten that night, but it more than made up for it.

Grimmjow staggered, eyes wide as Kenpachi continued forward, his burning yellow blade hacking cutting again and again, slashing deep but never so deep as to be fatal. The pain took him by surprise, but he rallied quickly, bracing himself and knocking the blade aside on the next attack. It cost him a slashed forearm, but he was beyond pain at this point. His claws surged forward; Kenpachi didn't dodge completely, but managed to keep Grimmjow's arm from tearing through his chest completely. Still grinning, he moved forward, and tossing his sword upwards, smashed Grimmjow's face with a head-butt. A crude, if effective kick followed, knocking him upward long and far enough for Kenpachi to grab his tail and use it to slam him into the ground.

"AARGH!"

Grimmjow coughed painfully as he impacted, and opened his eyes just in time to see Kenpachi grab his blade and bring it down in a brutal thrust. He rolled, but Kenpachi didn't even bother to notice; he just dragged the blade in Grimmjow's direction, slashing deeply into his back as he tried vainly to avoid it.

Keigo stared incredulously. "What the hell just happened? Why does he have a light saber now?" He turned, voice rising with his emotions. "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!"

"Quiet, you're ruining the show," Yumichika muttered distantly. He felt...off, to tell the truth.

WHY was left for a later time, as Keigo took the opportunity to grab the fifth seat, yank him around, and cold-cock him.

He didn't even bother to notice the stare he got from Ikkaku as he dropped onto Yumichika, grabbing him by the lapels and dragging him upward. "I'M SICK OF THIS FUCKIN SHIT! STOP TALKING DOWN TO ME, STOP TRYING TO SCARE ME, AND GIVE ME ONE! STRAIGHT! FUCKING! ANSWER! YOU HEAR ME, YOU FUCKING FRUIT?!"

Yumichika's eloquent and lovely response was a right hook to the jaw. Not content to leave it at that, he jumped on top of Keigo and started pummeling.

That in and of itself was odd enough, but the fact that Keigo started fighting back?

Ikkaku stared, wondering dimly when Rod Seward was going to show up. "What the fuck?"

"An unanticipated effect of Kenpachi's Shikai, I imagine."

Ikkaku blinked. Somehow, that would have explained a lot. Then he realized he recognized the voice.

"Bakudo 62, Hyapporankan."

With Ikkaku safely pinned and Keigo and Yumichika too busy brawling to notice, Aizen took a moment to observe the battle. Grimmjow could likely have won, if he'd stuck to longer range attacks. Kenpachi with only one arm was actually limited, and Grimmjow could outlast him.

How very fortuitous that just as Kenpachi's release occurred, Grimmjow decided to go hand to hand.

Yes. Very fortuitous.

He sighed. No one would come to help Kenpachi; most shinigami realized very quickly that trying to get involved in one of Zaraki's fights, regardless of whether they were on his side or not would most likely result in a savage beating at the 11th Captain's hands. But when they finally noticed his reiatsu...

He counted himself lucky that with Kenpachi's reiatsu blanketing the area, no one was likely to notice anything for a while.

Still, no reason to delay. Sauntering over towards what was left of his subordinates, he smiled pleasantly.

Yachiru waved happily, bopping Tousen for good measure. "Hi, megane!"

"Hello Yachiru. I wonder, would you mind letting me have Tousen back?"

Yachiru pouted. "I beat worm-head fair and square! He's mine now!"

Aizen chuckled amicably. "Well, you certainly did do a number on him. Are those bite marks all over him?"

She giggled, her previous pout forgotten. "He laughed at the Bunny Queen! He won't laugh next time."

ILikely he'll be too busy screaming and running/I Aizen thought. "Yes, he'll know better. Well, if you're not willing to just let me have him..." he slipped his hand under his coat...

Yachiru brightened up; was she going to get to fight ex-megane too?

...And brought out a small white paper bag. "Would you mind trading for him?"

Kenpachi paused in his savage beating off Grimmjow. It might surprise some, but even HE had a danger sense. It wasn't even blaring at this point, it had gone straight to 'pray that there are decent fights in hell, because YOU won't repent.' "Oi, what the hell are you giving her?"

Aizen smiled as one of the Exequias hoisted most of Tousen onto his shoulder, another gathering some of the missing bits. "Just a bit of candy."

Kenpachi's eyes narrowed. "You better not have given her something with – "

"Ne, Ken-chan! What's espresso mean?"

Even Kenpachi heard the toll of DOOM™.

"Chocolate-covered espresso beans," Aizen said with a smile. "A bit bitter normally, but I made sure to have extra sugar mixed with the chocolate for her. Oh, and a few choice amphetamines."

Kenpachi wanted to go back to his fight with Grimmjow. He REALLY wanted to finish it. But some things... "Yachiru, don't you DARE eat any of those."

"But Ken-CHAAAAAAANN..."

"Not a god-damn one of them." He paused, a wonderful, AWFUL idea occurring to him. "You wait until we get to go to Los Nochas, then you can eat the whole damn bag before you go to town on anything that moves. Hell, I'll even stay out of the fight."

The delighted grin on Yachiru's face was a thing of beauty. If it hadn't been covered in blood, it might have been even more so. "You'll let me have the WHOLE fight?!"

Aizen felt a little something in him die at the thought. Somehow, he hadn't expected that to happen. "Grimmjow, you will return as well."

"FUCK THAT! I'm not done with his ass yet..."

"Grimmjow." It wasn't a loud word. It wasn't angry. It was polite, and moderate, and even somewhat affectionate.

It cut RIGHT through the bullshit.

"You will return to Los Nochas." He raised a hand to forestall Kenpachi. "I'm sure you'll agree, taicho, that he could do with a bit of training. I assure you, when the two of you face each other again, you'll find that he's been whipped into shape."

Grimmjow felt an inexplicable urge to soil himself. Or maybe not so inexplicable.

Kenpachi grunted sourly, but let it go. The fight was pretty much over anyway, and he was getting bored again. Although his sword was one hell of a woman... "Ah, fine. 'Sides, I still need to beat the shit out of I...chi...go..."

Aizen nodded understandingly as the tooth-like portal to Los Nochas opened; he needed to wrap this up quickly, now that Kenpachi's reiatsu was fading. "Yes, he and the young miss Kuchiki took this opportunity to retreat. Though I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time once you're all properly healed." Stepping backwards, he nodded pleasantly as the portal closed.

Growling, Kenpachi swore that he'd find that orange-haired little bastard. He paused. "Properly healed..." he spun furiously to Yachiru. "Gimme my fuckin' arm back!" He turned to look at the still-scuffling Yumichika and (badly beaten, but damned if he'd go down) Keigo. "And cut that shit out."

--

Orihime blink-blinked. She hadn't expected to see Kenpachi...well, alright, she'd sort of figured that he'd be around, what with the war coming and all, but she hadn't expected him to kick down the door to her apartment. She certainly hadn't expected to see him so badly injured; she had (quite accurately) judged him to be the one who made other people look like hell, rather than look like hell himself.

Even expecting him, she certainly hadn't expected to find herself knocked to the ground by his severed arm.

For his part, Kenpachi just tossed Kyouranaikoku into the corner, and ripped off what was left of his shirt and vest. Dropping to a cross-legged seat on the ground, he turned his stump to her. "Heard you managed to fix that guy who was in charge of the gate. So hurry up and fix it."

Orihime managed a smile. "Um...could we do this in the bathroom? It's easier to clean up the blood."

Kenpachi rose, and shrugged. "Why the fuck not."

Orihime watched as he bled his way deeper into her home. She really was having the oddest day...

--

Grimmjow forced himself to stand still. Aizen hadn't even bothered to let him get patched up; he'd opened the portal straight into the throne room, casually mentioned that he should remain, and taken his seat, watching replays of the battle.

Grimmjow stood very still; he was in deep shit, he knew it, probably everyone knew it, but he'd be damned if he was going to show how sca...uncomfortable he was.

"Not at all what I would have expected," Aizen said suddenly, his voice shockingly loud in the silent room. "Though in a way, it makes perfect sense."

Grimmjow briefly considered speaking, and realized he was probably in deep enough shit.

Aizen chuckled. "Not unlike me, I suppose." He rose, strolling down from his throne. "But still, I doubt anyone would believe that Zaraki Kenpachi has a psychologically-based zanpakuto. It simply defies all logic."

Grimmjow remained silent, but the look on his face was apparently enough to make Aizen explained.

Or maybe he just wanted to exposit.

"You might have won, had you stayed out of his range," Aizen said, smiling as Grimmjow had to physically restrain his angry retort. "And yet you didn't. You played perfectly into his hands. You let yourself get dragged into a fight on his terms, a fight that you simply couldn't have won."

He turned back to the replays. "He loves to fight. He has nothing to prove, nothing to fight for, except for the sheer joy of fighting itself." He shook his head. "Even Nnoitra fights for something, however...ill-advised it might be. But all he wants is someone close enough to cut, that he CAN cut. And now, he has a sword that drives anyone in range berserk...he can ensure that any fight is his kind of fight."

He turned to Grimmjow, smiling. "I think perhaps it's time I took over your training, Grimmjow."

"A REAL honor," Gin quipped, smirking as he strolled out of one of the shadows. "Not just anybody gets Aizen-sama himself as a trainer. But you know," he added, "seems a bit lop-sided. I think I'll help whenever he can't."

Yep. He was in it deep. Though hopefully, it wouldn't get any deeper.

At the very least, not any deeper for him.

--

Thugs weren't anything new in most Japanese high schools. They might hold more power in some and less in others, but they were always there; the ones who came simply for lack of anything better to do, and skipped class because that in and of itself was something to do.

Those who were present were discovering that they were very little fish in a very big ocean.

With VERY...big sharks.

Kenpachi grinned; he could hear the teacher saying something, but he could have cared less. He was in one piece, he was in fighting trim, and he had every intention of making the day a good one.

"So...you finally ready for our rematch?"

Ichigo nearly cried.

Keigo looked around furtively, praying that he wouldn't pick a fight this time around.

The shinigami attending class all groaned, praying that they'd be able to explain that this wasn't really their faults.

And Orihime...Orihime could only regret healing him completely rather than just patching up his arm.

Well, part of her anyway. Mostly, she was watching in a sort of horrified fascination as Tatsuki stared at Zaraki Kenpachi.

And blushed.

--

Originally, I'd planned on Kenpachi's zanpakuto being some sort of grinding mechanism; the idea (with the chain motif) was for barbed chains to wrap around it, which would then spin REALLY bloody fast, making it grind its way through an opponent rather than cut.

And then I thought, would Kenpachi REALLY use something like that? What was it that made him tick, what was it that would REALLY say Zaraki Kenpachi?

And then, as I noted above, I read the Last Hero.

One of the things that struck me was a line in there describing Cohen the Barbarian; namely that he was 'contagious.' That he had this ability to infect the people around him, making them think like him, making them realize that the world was really a big simple place, and making them believe that they wanted to BE a part of that world.

And I knew exactly where to go from there.


End file.
